US climate targets at 'the lower end'
Updated on 27 October 2009
In the build-up to the Copenhagen climate change summit, US Senator John Kerry tells Sarah Smith that the US climate targets "may be at the lower end" then what was hoped for.
US negotiators can sign up to an emissions reduction deal in Copenhagen in December, even though the American climate change bill won't be signed into law by then.
That's what Channel 4 News has been told in an exclusive interview with John Kerry, the top Democrat sponsoring the bill.
But Senator Kerry warned that the carbon reduction target set by the US "may be at the lower end of what we can pass" - an indication that it could be as low as 17 per cent on 2005 levels.
Our Washington correspondent Sarah Smith reports.
What does it mean for Copenhagen?
The carbon emission targets adopted by the US in Copenhagen are critical to any deal. Too cautious and conservative - and developing countries would be less inclined to go for big cuts.
Too radical - and the US Congress could reject any deal, as it did after the Kyoto summit.
Our science correspondent Julian Rush looks at how US actions will influence what happens in Copenhagen.
Ed Miliband interview
The Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, joined Jon Snow in the studio to discuss the challenges facing him at the Copenhagen climate summit and answer questions put to him via Twitter.
EM: The context for this is that President Bush said that American emissions would carry on rising up to 2025. We'd be nowhere towards a deal at Copenhagen if he was still in office and making that position.
President Obama has made massive progress on this. They are promising significant cuts. I want to have more ambition. I want to have more ambition from the US on the numbers they will need to offer on the finance that we'll need to ofer as part of a deal. That's part of the processes of hard negotiation we've got to go through.
JS: What looks like a seven per cent cut in effect on 1990 levels is an appalling level compared with us?
EM: It reflects the fact that they are starting twenty years later because emissions have been rising by fifteen or seventeen per cent since 1990. Now I think the fact that they are starting later doesn't mean that they should have a free pass. I think it means they've got to find as many ways as possible of, if you like, compensating for that, like through finance. So putting money on the table so developing countries can cut their emissions.
JS: How important is what Senator Kerry said about the very fact that they're even prepared to do a deal without legislation.
EM: I think it is very significant...the fact that we now have a senior senator in the United States saying the US will go to Copenhagen, it will go with a firm number, even if the bill is not through the Senate is a very significant boost to Copenhagen. But our job in Britain is to push for the most ambitious deal we can get.
JS: We're told that meat production is a massive contributor to climate change. Can any politician afford to stand up and ask people to eat less meat? Can you?
EM: I'm not going to tell people how to eat. But what I am going to say is that in Britain we have carbon budgets so every government department has a responsibility for containing the amount of carbon that they are responsible for and that includes our department for food and rural affairs so that production methods will have to change as we meet our targets and I think other countries should do that too.
Twitter questions from Channel 4 News viewers:
@DancingFlea: If a consensus is not reached what will the next step be for the United Kingdom?
EM: We will carry on doing the things we have promised to do. Cut our emissions by 34 per cent by 2020 but there's no plan B here. And actually not having a plan B is quite important. Because it has meant that China has said it will take action, India has moved, Japan has moved...A lot is happening as a result of Copenhagen and the deadline and it has to be a real deadline. Because if we let people off then we certainly won't get an ambitious deal.
@OxfamMidlands: People living in poverty around the world are counting on you. Are you going to deliver the deal they need?
EM: Yes. We have to do that. I was in Bangladesh a couple of months ago and I saw people who are on the front line of climate change. They're facing their homes being washed away from floods and cyclones etc. So a deal at Copenhagen isn't just about reducing emissions - it's got to be about money for poor countries to adapt to the climate change that is already inevitable.
